RHS Sports Roundup

RHS girls tennis qualifies for tourney

The Revere high girls tennis team qualified for the post-season state tournament with a 4-1 victory over Salem last Tuesday.

All three of the Lady Patriots’ single players won their matches, led by Trang Nguyen at first singles, who earned a come-from-behind victory, 6-7, 6-0, 6-2.

Luisa Gil triumphed at second singles, 6-3, 6-4 and Oulaya Louaddi defeated her Salem counterpart at third singles, 2-6, 7-6, 6-4 in a hard-fought, three-set match.

The first doubles tandem of Lina Nguyen and Ayat Zakaria won their match, 6-0, 6-2.

The duo of Zakaria and Lina Nguyen provided the lone RHS victory, 7-5, 6-0, in a 4-1 loss to Malden. In a 4-1 defeat to Beverly, Lina Nguyen won her match at second singles, 1-6, 7-5, 6-1.

The Lady Patriots dropped a 3-2 match to Somerville in their regular-season finale on Saturday in a fierce battle. Gil fell in three sets at first singles,  6-4, 4-6, 3-6; Lina Nguyen won at second singles, 6-0, 6-3; Oulaya Louaddi fell at third singles, 0-6, 1-6; the first doubles tandem of Ayat Zakaria and Nada Abou Hadiba came up short,  4-6, 4-6; and the second doubles duo of Chelsea Phan and Malak Oufessa won, 6-0, 6-3.

Coach Carla Maniscalso and her crew now will await the announcement of their seeding and first-round opponent in the MIAA tourney.

RHS boys tennis team just short in tourney bid

The Revere High boys tennis team came up just short in its bid to qualify for a post-season state tourney berth.

The Patriots entered the final week of the season with a 7-8 record and needed two victories in their final three matches in order to attain the magic .500 record that is required to punch a ticket for a Journey to the Tourney.

Coach Mike Flynn’s crew took the first step with a 5-0 victory over Lynn English. Freshman Ashton Hoang won his match in shutout fashion, 6-0, 6-0, at first singles to set the pace for the Patriots.

Senior captain David Phan defeated his English counterpart at second singles, 6-0, 6-1. “David is the most improved player, from the day he started in the program to the end of his career, whom I’ve ever coached,” noted Flynn.

At third singles, junior captain Wellan Sok earned a 6-2, 6-3 win. “Wellan is a captain for a reason,” said Flynn. “He comes to every practice and works as hard as anybody to improve his game.”

Both the first doubles duo of Michael Marchese & Ergi Ismahili and the second doubles tandem of Vincent Nguyen & Matthew Freitas triumphed handily in straight sets, 6-0, 6-1.

In their next match against Malden, the Patriots came up on the short end of a 3-2 decision. Phan turned in what Flynn termed “the best match of David’s career” in a three-set tiebreaker, 7-5, 4-6, 7-6 (8-6). Sok also prevailed in dramatic fashion with a gutsy, come-from-behind, three-set victory, 5-7, 7-6 (7-2), 6-2.

However, Malden triumphed in the other three matches to carry the day.

That brought the Patriots up against a Somerville squad that is one of the top teams in the Northeastern Conference and which previously had defeated the Patriots 5-0 earlier in the season. Hoang showed why he is the top player ever to don an RHS boys tennis uniform as he won his match, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4, against a senior Somerville player who had edged Ashton 6-4, 6-4 in their first meeting. “Ashton is an incredibly smart player,” said Flynn. “He goes up against opponents who are bigger and more experienced, but he figures out a way to beat them.”

However, both Phan and Sok fell at the other singles matches, while the doubles teams of Marchese & Freitas and Nafiz Islam & Elvis Aquilar also came up short.

“It would have been quite an accomplishment to have qualified for the tourney,” said Flynn, “but we lost to teams that were better than us and beat the teams we should have beaten. All season this team worked hard and gave it their best, which is all that a coach can ask.”

Up and down week for RHS softball team

If Charles Dickens were writing about the Revere High softball team he might aptly have described their week this way: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”

The Lady Patriots handily dispatched three foes to start the week, defeating Malden, 13-9, Somerville, 12-0, and Lynn English, 10-2.

However, in contests with Beverly and Newton South, the Lady Patriots held early leads only to see them evaporate in the late innings. In Monday’s contest at Newton South, Revere appeared to be cruising along nicely entering the sixth inning with a 7-1 lead. Key hits for Revere were delivered by Adrian Fusco with a bases-loaded, bases-clearing double and Eve Lescovitz with a two-run single.

However, in the bottom of the sixth, Newton South rallied for nine runs to send the Lady Patriots home with a 10-7 loss.

On Friday, Revere had grabbed a 2-0 lead against Beverly, only to see the Lady Panthers erupt for 12 runs, aided by some Revere fielding miscues, to end up with a 12-4 loss.

“We aren’t making the big plays in the field that can make the difference between ending another team’s inning or allowing them to get back in the game,” said RHS head coach Joe Ciccarello. “It’s been a problem for us all season.”

The Lady Patriots, who punched their ticket for a Journey to the Tourney with their 10th win to assure themselves of a .500 record, will close out their regular season on Sunday with a home game against Austin Prep at 10:00 on the newly-christened Ardagna Field at Griswold Park.

Doucette wins medal at D-1 state meet

Sophomore Ryan Doucette, fresh off his triumph at the Northeastern Conference Meet, earned a fifth place medal at the EMass Division 1 Meet this past Saturday in the javelin.

Ryan came through with a throw of 154’-6” to claim his ribbon.

“Ryan’s chance of getting a medal at this meet was going to be a tough one,” said RHS head coach Sam Ros. “He had to throw a PR (personal record) if he was going to have a chance. Like any typical javelin event, any of the throwers could have an off or on day. The seedings for this meet were based on their season’s best. Ryan’s best just happened to seed him at 11th. Ryan finished the trials with a throw of 147’, which brought him into finals in the sixth spot. In the finals, he bettered his PR throw by a few inches, throwing 154- 6”. That throw bumped him up a spot, earning him the fifth place medal. The only other underclassmen who finished ahead of Ryan was the kid from Natick. I was told by his coach that he threw a monster PR by 20 feet to put him into third overall.”

Teammate Lucas Barbosa also had qualified to compete in the javelin and finished in 13th place with a toss of 142’-4”.

“Lucas came into the meet seeded at 21st,” said Ros of Barbosa, who is one of the top RHS track performers, but who was hampered all season by a hamstring injury from the football season. “He finished the day missing his PR by only a few inches. Unfortunately, it finished him 13th, just missing making it to the finals by a matter of feet.

“We didn’t have many kids compete at the D-1 Meet,” continued Ros. “Ryan and Lucas  competed in the javelin and Antony Arias competed in the long jump. We also had a 4×400 team of Antony, Michael Adolphus, Idriss Taoujni, and Cristian Acuna.

“Antony is coming off the injury, so we weren’t expecting much from him. He qualified so he really wanted to give it a try. Considering he hasn’t been full health, he jumped with a respectable distance of 19’- 5.25”.

“The 4×400 team qualified into the meet as the last seed, so we weren’t looking for anything special either. It was Cristian Acuna’s last race ever in high school. He had never qualified for States so this was for him. Cristian did not disappoint,” Ros added. “After breaking the school record with the 4×800 team last week, we didn’t think he could do better, but Cristian had other plans. He was our anchor leg, took the baton, and raced to a third PR in a row in the 400 with a time of 56.6.”

Reflecting on the past season, in which the Patriots attained their best record in many years and best finish ever in the NEC, Ros added, “This was a great season by our teams. We had a lot of newcomers contribute to our successful season, one of whom was Ryan. There is much more to work on with his technique. If he realizes his potential and works hard at it, there’s no reason why he can’t be competing at states next year. This meet was pretty much the end of this season, because we did not have any of our D-1 meet competitors move on to All States this weekend. We do have one meet left on the schedule, the decathlon in Burlington.

“The decathlon is a fun meet for us. If Antony continues to recover well, he has a shot to place very high and break the school record in this two-day event,” Ros added.

Bettero wins medal at D-1 Meet

Freshman Carolina Bettero capped an outstanding season by earning a seventh-place medal at Saturday’s Eastern Mass. Division 1 Meet.

Carolina sped to a seventh-place finish in the 400 meter low hurdles with a clocking of 70.26 seconds.

She also just missed medaling in the 100 meter high hurdles, coming across in ninth place with a time of 17.63.

Freshman Gianna Mahoney, who had captured the Northeastern Conference championship the week before in the javelin, finished in 21st place in that event with a throw of 80’-10”.

The Lady Patriot 4 x 400 relay team of Astrid Umanzor, Kathy Umanzor, Emily DeMauro, and Gabby Mogavero finished in 20th place with a clocking of 4:36.93.